A meta-analytic review of the effectiveness of mood inductions in eliciting emotion-based behavioral risk-taking and craving in the laboratory

Abstract

Urgency research supports the role of emotions in risk-taking and craving. However, much of this work is based in self-report. It is not yet known whether existing experimental methods can effectively induce emotion-based risk-taking and craving. The present meta-analysis quantified the effectiveness of mood inductions in inducing risk-taking and craving in the laboratory. We also examined potential moderators, including participant factors, changes in emotional arousal, and study design factors. For negative mood inductions, the degree of changes in risk-taking (k = 35, Hedge’s g (SE) = 0.12 (0.04), 95% CI [0.04 – 0.21]) and craving (k = 37, Hedge’s g (SE) = 0.30 (0.06), 95% CI [0.19 – 0.40]) were small. Increases in emotional arousal were significantly related to increases in craving (B* = 0.26). For positive mood inductions, there was no significant change in risk-taking (k = 18, Hedge’s g (SE) = 0.17 (0.11), 95% CI [−0.04 – 0.38]) nor craving (k = 8, Hedge’s g (SE) = −0.10 (0.10), 95% CI [−0.31 – 0.10]); however, false positive feedback produced the largest increase in risk-taking. Study samples using guided imagery produced a moderate decrease in risk-taking. Overall, existing negative mood inductions increased risk-taking and craving in the laboratory to a small degree. Existing positive mood inductions failed to elicit risk-taking or craving, although the literature in this domain was sparser. We suggest that there is a great need to develop and optimize mood induction methods to better study emotion-based risk-taking and craving in the laboratory.